A compensation given to a hired person for services; price paid for labor; recompense; hire. See Wage, n., 2.

source: Webster 1913

The share of the annual product or national dividend which goes as a reward to labor, as distinct from the remuneration received by capital in its various forms. This economic or technical sense of the word wages is broader than the current sense, and includes not only amounts actually paid to laborers, but the remuneration obtained by those who sell the products of their own work, and the wages of superintendence or management, which are earned by skill in directing the work of others.